It takes a village to raise a child, and a nation to build an O.J. Simpson. Back in 1995, a country obsessed with celebrity culture was hypnotised by the trial of the former American football star for allegedly killing his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.
Often referred to as the “trial of the century,” it witnessed gravel-to-gravel media coverage, feeding on the voyeuristic thirst for scandal. More than two decades on, with uncountable news reports, conspiracy theories and parodies about it, you’d expect fatigue to set in, yet O.J.: Made in America hits you like a lightning bolt; not only because it mirrors the case against the nation’s perpetual preoccupation, race, but also because it comes at an eerily relevant time, both politically and socially.
Saga of a nation
To say that Simpson’s story is simply one of the rise and fall of a celebrity would be rather naive. The almost eight-hour documentary, directed by Ezra Edelman for ESPN Films and their ‘30 for 30’ series, lifts the Simpson saga and places it in the context of racial tension in Los Angeles, the American Civil Rights movement, and the power struggle between the African-American community and the law. In the process, the documentary vilifies neither whites nor blacks, police nor rioters, lawyers nor jury; it is merely a silent, unflinching spectator listening to the stories of all those who saw it unfold up close.
On the sidelines of Los Angeles’s struggle with racist attacks and riots, Simpson, a ‘whitewashed’ black man, was rising in fame. As the documentary tracks the journey of Simpson from sportsman to celebrity, it concurrently chronicles the 1965 Watts Riots, the killings of teenager Latasha Harlins by a store owner and Eulia Love by the police, and the beating of taxi driver Rodney King in 1991. Edelman juxtaposes these racist attacks against the steely detachment of Simpson from his African-American identity. As the sports star was being seduced by the white world, he is quoted in the documentary as saying, “I am not black. I am OJ.”
Simpson’s declaration came at a time when the entire country needed an influential black role model. But the very accession of Simpson could, in many ways, be explained by his unperturbed distancing from his ethnic identity. The blacks adored him, the whites weren’t threatened by him.
No longer white
However, Edelman’s documentary proves that you can run a mile away from your identity but it will soon catch up with you, especially when you’re being judged in a court of law. It documents the clinical efforts of Simpson’s army of lawyers to resurrect his African-American identity and show him to be a victim of the racist law enforcement system. With the overwhelming support of the African-American community, Simpson was acquitted. But, more than a decade later—now truly a ‘black’ man (and one stereotypically indulging in drugs and sex)—Simpson was sentenced to jail for 33 years for armed robbery and kidnapping. Was the verdict a retribution for his acquittal in the Nicole Brown case? Or was it because he wasn’t “white” any more? These are questions Edelman slyly asks, elevating the documentary from the story of a man to that of a nation.
O.J. Simpson in a still from the documentary.
Look closer and it could explain Donald Trump’s accession to power as well. Narcissism, racial politics, vilification of ethnicity, media obscurantism, message and narrative overpowering facts and evidence; there are similarities which can’t be unseen once you discover them. (Interestingly, the documentary also briefly shows a picture of Simpson and Trump posing together in the ’90s.)
Film or series
It can’t be mere coincidence that stories of and by African-Americans are being increasingly (and rebelliously) validated in the politically and ideologically divided America. The 89th Academy Awards witnessed a record number of ‘black winners’, and O.J.: Made in America bagged the award for Best Documentary Feature.
At the 2016 Emmy’s, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was awarded the Outstanding Limited Series. At the Grammy’s that largely snubbed Beyonce this year, the artiste took to the stage to assert her racial identity. Even the Booker Prize 2016 went to The Sellout , Paul Betty’s caustic satire, where the protagonist wants to assert his African-American identity by bringing back slavery and segregation.
Against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement, this unprecedented acknowledgement of the African-American narratives mirrors the American obsession with race that Edelman’s documentary spotlights. O.J.: Made in America runs for 467 minutes, soaking in the viewer completely, and controversially blurring the lines between feature films and mini series. The documentary had an initial theatrical release prior to its five-part TV broadcast and played for seven days in Los Angeles and New York cinema halls.
In India, O.J.: Made in America gets aired in five parts on television (every Sunday on Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD till May 28), but the documentary is best binge-watched, much like what the Oscars intended it to be. I started watching the documentary on an evening planning to watch an episode a day. By the next morning, I had seen them all.
It’s much to do with the documentary being a perceptive and gripping character study of an individual and a society, one that pulls you deep into the whirlpool of ghastly facts, hard-hitting interviews and unapologetic footage. But Edelman refrains from pushing any conclusions. Simpson’s father is gay, his mother is extremely religious, he cheated in golf, was unfaithful to his first wife, tried to be a good father to his kid, lost his daughter in a swimming accident; does that necessarily add up in the trial? Maybe not.
But that’s precisely why O.J.: Made in America rises above a sports documentary or a courtroom drama: it tells you more. However, one can’t help but notice the skewed gender representation. In a story where domestic abuse plays a pivotal role, the overpowering number of male voices and the lack of investigation into Simpson as a wife-beater is somewhat unsettling. But that’s not to say Edelman brushes past the subject. He opens various small windows, but focuses mainly on the anatomy of a race-plagued America; a nation where O.J. Simpson’s husband-kills-wife story explodes into a black-celebrity-kills-white-wife crime legend.
kennith.rosario@thehindu.co.in
